Stellar Interiors

Th first edition of this text appeared in 1994. Shortly after the third printing, our editor suggested that we attempt a second edition because new developments in stellar structure and evolution had made our original work outdated. We (the original authors, CJH and SDK) reluctantly agreed but with reservations due to the effort involved. Our initial reluctance disappeared when we were able to convince (cajole, twist the arm of, etc.) our new coauthor colleague Virginia Trimble to join us. (Welcome Virginia!) We (i.e., all three of us) hope that you agree that the present edition is a great improvement compared to the 1994 effort. Our objectives in this edition are the same ones we set forth in 1994: What you will find is a text designed for our target audience: the typical senior undergraduate or beginning graduate student in astronomy or astrophysics who wishes an overview of stellar structure and evolution with just enough detail to understand the general picture. She or he can go on from there to more specialized texts or directly to the research literature depending on talent and interests. To this end, this text presents the basic physical principles without chasing all the (interesting!) details. For those of you familiar with the first edition, you will find that some things have not been changed substantially (F = ma is still F = ma), while others definitely have. For example, Chapter 2 has been completely rewritten.